Imagination and Prayer

    Imagination often opens the door to faith. If God shows us a shattered marriage whole or a sick person well, it helps us to believe that it will be so.  Children instantly understand these things and respond well to praying with the imagination. I was once called to a home to pray for a seriously ill baby girl. Her four-year-old brother was in the room, and so I told him I needed his help to pray for his baby sister.  He was delighted, and so was I since I know that children can often pray with unusual effectiveness.  He climbed up into the chair beside me. “Let’s play a little game,” I said. “Since we know that Jesus is always with us, let’s imagine that he is sitting over in the chair across from us. He is waiting patiently for us to center our attention on him. When we see him, we start thinking more about his love then how sick Julie is.  He smiles, gets up, and comes over to us. Then, let’s both put our hands on Julie, and when we do, Jesus will put his hands on top of ours.  We’ll watch the light from Jesus flow into your little sister and make her well.  Let’s watch the healing power of Christ fight with the bad germs until they are gone.  Okay?”  Seriously, the little one nodded.  Together, we prayed in this childlike way and then thanked the Lord that what we had prayed was the way it was going to be.  Now, I do not know exactly what happened, nor how it was accomplished, but I do know that the next morning Julie was perfectly well. 

Let me insert a word of caution at this point.  We are not trying to conjure up something in our imagination that is not so. Nor are we trying to manipulate God and tell him what to do.  Quite the opposite.  We are asking God to tell us what to do.  God is the ground of our beseeching, as Juliana of Norwich put it, and we are utterly dependent upon him.  Our prayer is to be like a reflex action to God’s prior initiative upon the heart.  The ideas, the pictures, the words are of no avail unless they proceed from the Holy Spirit who, as you know, is interceding for us “with sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26). 

Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline p. 41-42

Seeing Sin as the Norm

". . . evangelical Christians (in particular) might be guilty of seeing sin as so deeply entrenched in human  life that it somehow becomes the norm. It is, it seems, all too easy when faced with sin in the life of a Christian to hear, “Well, she’s only human, after all,” as if to be human is to be sinful! It is, alas, even  easier to say such things—especially when the sinner in question is the one whom we see in the mirror!"

-- McCall, Against God and Nature

God's Perspective on Our Lives

 This comic strip suggested God's perspective on us, His ability to view our lifespan as a whole, because He is outside time and omnipresent.

Where Can We Find Healing?

 Through Eucharist, we receive healing and are enabled to aid in the healing of others. Sozo, the root of the Greek word used in the New Testament for healing, is also translated as salvation and wholeness. Much of this healing is spiritual, but it also includes the healing of our thoughts and emotions, of our minds and bodies, of our attitudes and relationships. The grace received at the Table of the Lord can make us whole. As those who are being saved, we seek to bring healing to a broken world. The United Methodist Book of Worship describes this well: “Spiritual healing is God’s work of offering persons balance, harmony, and wholeness of body, mind, spirit, and relationships through confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Through such healing, God works to bring about reconciliation between God and humanity, among individuals and communities, within each person, and between humanity and the rest of creation” (page 613). Holy Communion can be a powerful aspect of the services of healing provided in the Book of Worship (pages 615–623). 

from This Holy Mystery: A United Methodist Understanding of Holy Communion p. 10

The Potter

 “The world is not spinning out of control...it’s just on a potter’s wheel.”  -Jessica LaGrone

(quoted by Maxie Dunnam on Facebook)

Joy as Well as Sorrow!

 "As I began looking for a church home in my new town, however, every sermon I heard was about how Christ comforts us in our troubles and the church is there for us in our sorrows. I knew that, but I also wanted to hear the message that the church cared about my happiness. It was frustrating to want to share joy when all I encountered was sympathy. When one pastor happened to mention that God cares about our joy as well as our sorrows, I returned to that church." 

-Thomas Blanton, Upper Room, Wed. May 11th A.D. 2022

Blanton here reminds me not to be too narrowly focused in my sermons. If I'm preaching about sympathy in sorrow, I should look for an opportunity to mention sharing in others joys as well. 

God's Hand at Work

" 'God, where are you?' I was 22 when I first asked this question. A horrific car crash had left me with a ten percent chance of survival, yet miraculously I am still here. Now in my sixties, I am finding it easier to see God’s work in my life.

I grew up in a Christian household, made a profession of faith at age 12, and have been a Christian since. When I was young, I mistakenly believed that being Christian should give me protection from suffering. But this is simply not true. It was not true for Christ, nor is it true for his followers.

Looking at my life that has included multiple surgeries and physical maladies, an onlooker might mistakenly assume that God was far removed from me. But that would be a mistake. I saw God’s hand at work when surgeons changed their minds at the last minute, when treatment plans were altered, and when surgery revealed results dramatically different from x-rays. God was present in the support of friends and family who prayed and offered words of encouragement. God was there all along."

by Dean Gammons, Upper Room, Monday, May 9th A.D. 2022

Polarized Squabbling

 

https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1960/10/29

forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead Philippians 3:12-14

 

https://www.gocomics.com/culdesac/2007/11/07

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past. Isaiah 43:18

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.   Philippians 3:12-14

"Not on Your Life!"

Charles Blondin, whose real name was Jean François Gravelet, was a French acrobat who first walked a tightrope 1100 feet across Niagara Falls in 1859. He performed this feat many more times. More than once he walked across the falls while carrying his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back. After one such trip he said to a man in the crowd, “Do you believe I could do that with you?” 

The man answered, “Yes, I’ve just seen you do it.” 

“Well, then,” Blondin said, “Hop on and I’ll carry you across.” 

But the man replied, “Not on your life.” 

Saving faith goes beyond mere mental assent that affirms certain statements as true. Faith must also involve the consent of our will. We must trust in Christ.

from High Calling, published by the Francis Asbury Society, March - April issue 2022

What Abraham Could Not Hear

(as preserved by Dennis Kinlaw)

Henry Clay Morrison used to describe this scene in a powerful way. He would say:

I thought I heard a conversation on Mount Moriah. It wasn’t between Abraham and Isaac, it was between the first Person of the Trinity and the second Person of the Trinity. The second Person of the Blessed Trinity said to the first of the Blessed Trinity. “Father, this is not the last time we’re coming to this mountaintop, is it?”

And the Father said to the eternal Son, “No, Son, this is not the last time we’re coming to this mountaintop. It will be about two thousand years and we’ll be back here.”

“Father, when we come back the next time, it won’t be one of them on this altar, will it?”

The eternal Father replied, “No, Son, when we come back the next time, it won’t be one of them on this altar; it will be one of us.”

“It will be me, won’t it?”

And the Father said, “Son, yes, it will be you.”

The eternal Son looked into the face of the eternal Father and he said, “Father, when we come back the next time, and it’s me on that altar, and the knife’s raised or the spear is raised, and they’re ready to push it in, are you going to say, ‘Don’t touch the lad’?”

“No Son. We never ask them to do in symbol what we are not willing to do in reality.”

Authentic Christian Experience

“Authentic Christian experience is not playing praise music on your car radio or placing your body in a pew to listen to a sermon. Authentic Christian experience is the process of establishing provenance, of growing into Christ. The world is not impressed that people attend church on Sunday morning. If anything, such a habit is viewed as a quaint waste of time. But imagine if every Christian in the world were living as a little Christ. Such provenance is not just a passionate transforming experience for the Christian; it’s also a tantalizing expression of the gospel to the outside world. Starbucks opens stores on the opposite street corners because of the draw of passion and authentic experience. But what is the draw of Christian faith if that faith is not practiced and experienced?”—Leonard Sweet, The Gospel According to Starbucks, 2007